Academy nixes four score contenders

'Black Swan,' 'True Grit,' 'Kids' and 'Fighter' deemed ineligible

The scores for four contenders for Academy Awards have run afoul of music-branch rules and are being disqualified from Oscar consideration.

“Black Swan” and “True Grit” have been deemed ineligible as “scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music,” according to sources inside the Academy music-branch executive committee.

“The Kids Are All Right” and “The Fighter” are expected to be disqualified as scores “diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs,” following another of the Acad’s stringent music rules.

Composer Clint Mansell’s “Black Swan” score, as largely adapted from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” and Carter Burwell’s “True Grit,” as mostly based on 19th century hymns, are not sufficiently “original,” the committee ruled last week.

“The Kids Are All Right” and “The Fighter” have original scores — “Kids” by Burwell, “Fighter” by Michael Brook — but both films are filled with songs, leaving the scores to play second fiddle much of the time.

Alexandre Desplat’s “The King’s Speech” has been ruled eligible despite some concerns by committee members that key moments of the film feature classical-music excerpts.